Group: Members
Posts: 24,508
Joined: 23-August 13
From: The North
Member No.: 44,432

Ah, but there's a reason why Tories, Brexit & Trump all won despite all being well behind in the polls & odds. It's been argued it's shy voters, I'm not too sure that's right. I suspect there's an overestimation of the younger, vocal, media savvy, left-leaning voter in all these polls. Maybe there's also an urban-bias factor too that isn't representative of the wider electorate. Mind you, wasn't there a bitter battle between Clinton & Sanders? Maybe the Sanders voters couldn't quite bring themselves to vote for Hillary? Must have a look and see what type they were...

Ah, but there's a reason why Tories, Brexit & Trump all won despite all being well behind in the polls & odds. It's been argued it's shy voters, I'm not too sure that's right. I suspect there's an overestimation of the younger, vocal, media savvy, left-leaning voter in all these polls. Maybe there's also an urban-bias factor too that isn't representative of the wider electorate. Mind you, wasn't there a bitter battle between Clinton & Sanders? Maybe the Sanders voters couldn't quite bring themselves to vote for Hillary? Must have a look and see what type they were...

You didn't grow up hoping, one day, to somehow earn enough money to buy yourself the best of all possible cars? Driving up from the Bahamas, while listening to your favorite Doors cover band? And use it to take the Redacted, Politically Incorrect Term to the zoo?

Back on Topic (-ish) ...

A couple of notes on the whole polling thing, from the Math Geek: remember, polls are meant to be predictive, not absolute. Put another way: there's a reason we have a "margin of error," which is why statisticians prefer the use of a Confidence Interval to a single number. So, "Scoobs leads PTC in the polls by 4 points" (and we all know, regardless of the question, I'm beating PTC in the poll) is the same as "Scoobs and PTC are in a virtual draw in the polls" if the margin of error is 20 points. In the case of political polls, you have the additional error of "likely voters" which is a nebulous term for a nebulous concept. Mostly, though, like everything else, you try and use various factors (demographic information like age, income, location; past participation in elections if available; maybe an opening question to the survey/poll) to gauge the likelihood a respondent will vote. If you don't correctly gauge "Likely Voters," or miss a group of participants who have not voted recently, your math may be right, but your underlying data is skewed.

So, while Clinton led most polls, she was also within the "margin of error" for many of them. And, I'm sure the pollsters are reviewing their "likely voter" methodologies (each poll is different and it is tedious, if not difficult, to review the underlying definition for each poll) to update them based upon this year's result. I would suspect the problem isn't skewing toward "young" voters, as they tend to be under-represented, if anything (see: previous participation as a key indicator for "Likely Voter.") Anecdotally, I know of several people who haven't voted for a few elections who were definitely in the Trump column, from the beginning. The polls underestimated his support, which is also supported by the numbers indicating turnout was down overall, but especially in districts Hilary won. So, where there was voter turnout, it was Trumpian, pointing to a problem in the whole "Likely Voter" thing.

Also, there's a good article on 538 about just howclose this election really was. Basically: if you turned one vote for Trump into Clinton, she wins and largely in the states / by the margin predicted. Given the amount of pre-election volatility ("Likely Voters" who remained undecided), that's a slim margin.

And that's before we get to the difference between the Popular Vote and the Electoral College, which, despite PTC's protestations, isn't hard to figure out. Basically: the Electoral College is one more layer of representation on the way to an election as a part of the various States Rights and proportionality debates (really: read the Wikipedia article). And, in the case of this election, it worked as designed: even though a majority of the voters in the country voted with Her, a majority of the voting districts went for Trump. And I mean that county-by-county in each state. Basically, the Electoral College worked as designed (at least in a modern sense): it prevented population dense areas from overwhelming more rural areas, preventing those of us living in "flyover states" from being ruled by those, like PTC, who live in the more densely populated Coastal Zones. Note, as well, the Electoral College prevents the President from being elected by Congress, explicitly preventing the Presidency from being "beholden" to the Legislature, which is exactly the kind of hard separation between government functions (what my grade school teacher calls the "three branches") which differentiates U.S.-style representative democracy from the more commonly seen Parliamentarian form, such as in the U.K.

And ... yeah, I've ranted enough. I was going to try and switch from Dead Milkmen to Dead Kennedys references, to force a "leaving the country if he wins" / Holiday in Cambodia joke, but it's tortured enough just explaining it. (looks at Walor - dude, make the joke in your head)

--------------------

I used to stay out late and try to walk the Muse home. Now I get up fresh-faced at 7 a.m. and take advantage of her while she's passing out.-Bono

For me it just really came down to depressed turnout for Hillary, the dude won with less votes than Romney. Can be blamed on whether the mainstream media painted a picture of a blowout depressing turnout or just the candidate being Clinton... or a bit of both. Tough to believe Sanders wouldn't have won.

Just sad to realize Trump was able to generate this much turnout with his campaign message. I get many of the voters were motivated by frustration with the establishment but he wouldn't have won without that vast population who passionately related to his xenophobia, Islamophobia, and the general white supremacy theme of his campaign. It's also sad that even the 'moderate' Trump supporters basically felt it was acceptable to 'step on' all those minority groups for the sake of the bigger picture. You know something is not right when the way you react to an election result is not with jubilation, anger or sadness, but genuine fear and concern for your own family's safety.

I would love to be hopeful but the dude just hired Steve Bannon as his Chief Strategist...

Yeah, it's easy enough for me to say "wait and see" and hope for the best, but for those out there who aren't so white, the concern is real.

Regardless: the concern is real. Orange Il Duce has already ...

Stated, "Torture works. Believe me." It doesn't. Oh, right, but he knows more than the Generals.

He wants to loosen the non-existent Libel laws, to make it easier to sue "the media." Because, you know, that promotes an independent watchdog on potential government overreach.

Supported / floated the idea of a "religious test" for entry into the U.S., i.e. banning on Muslims from entering the country based, solely, upon religion. Which in no way violates the spirit of the First Amendment (cue: trumpets), "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; ..."

Supported the "stop and frisk" style of policing. Which was struck down by a Federal Judge, precisely because it was unlawfully targeted African- and Latino-Americans. Oh, and the guy most famously in charge of that policy? Looks like he will either be Secretary of State or Attorney General. Clearly, based upon support for an unconstitutional policy, he's qualified to help determine how to apply our laws or explain them to the rest of the world. Clearly.

You think that guy is going to leave your Civil Rights alone, regardless of your ghostly complexion? Personally, I can glow in the dark, which actually scares me, since I figure that means I'm easy for the impending American Stasi to find.

I heard a joke the other day (for the record: gallows humor futures are going through the roof) along the lines of, "the 2016 election made me understand States Rights advocacy and the desire to own a gun." Funny, sad and (really, really) true.

--------------------

I used to stay out late and try to walk the Muse home. Now I get up fresh-faced at 7 a.m. and take advantage of her while she's passing out.-Bono